


Monstrous

by Cerberusia



Series: Dark Voltron Week 2017 [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brainwashing, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9353732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: Shiro gives the crowd what they want.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Dark Voltron Week Day 4 prompts, 'Demons and Monsters/Scars'. Mainly the former. It's Shiro's perspective on some of the events in the fic I wrote for Day 2, "Corruption".
> 
> My soundtrack for this fic was Tori Amos' "Devils and Gods":
> 
> _Devils and Gods, they are you and I._  
>  _Devils and Gods, safe and Inside._

One of Shiro's earliest opponents had a cybernetic tail. She was huge, six-legged and green-skinned, far more powerful than any creature he'd seen before - and in place of her original tail was a metal replacement, lashing the air in excitement. It was the first cybernetic enhancement he'd seen, and it struck him with instinctive horror. The joint between metal and flesh was smooth, as if the one had simply grown out of the other; but there was something wrong about it all the same.

Several fights later, Shiro had lost his own arm. He had come in close to finish his opponent, not realising that her species defended itself with a venomous bite. He didn't remember the pain, though he was told that he screamed, senseless on the arena floor. He won the match, but she had her own victory.

What he remembered was waking up and not realising that anything was different - until he looked to his right. Addled by sedatives, he imagined he could pry it right off and find his real arm beneath it. He had been discovered and strapped down more securely before he could do more than leave bloody scratches in his shoulder.

The worst part was not that he had been surgically altered, but that it didn't feel any different. If he wasn't looking at his arm, he would forget that it wasn't his; that it had ever been injured at all. It did not differ in weight, nor in size: to all intents and purposes, his body behaved as though it has always belonged to him. His immune system had accepted the enemy's technology; his body accepted the invasion.

He didn't realise the new arm's true capabilities until he fought an opponent that looked like a human-sized, bipedal black rabbit, carrying an electrified glaive. He held himself perfectly still at the other side of the arena, and Shiro knew immediately that it would be a close match. Perhaps not in his favour.

When it came to the clinch, the rabbit's glaive was no longer electrified - but Shiro's weapon was lost entirely. His opponent leapt for him, surely thinking that he held the advantage. Shiro reached for the glaive to turn it aside from his throat.

The glaive spun off to the side, sliced cleanly in two. Then Shiro was on the rabbit, his arm glowing Galra-purple, and things became confused as they grappled - and then Shiro realised that his opponent was no longer struggling, because Shiro's last strike had all but severed him at the waist.

He looked up and found Commander Sendak in the crowd - his eyes were drawn to him. _You made me into this_. Dark viscera drenched his new arm up to the shoulder.

There was fresh fear in the other prisoners' faces when he was at last returned to his cell. As ever, he spoke to no-one. His reputation was deliberately and carefully cultivated; but when the others curled up in groups to stay warm, he felt ever more keenly the metal chill as he slept with his back to the wall.

After that, he never used a sword again. His arm was all he needed. It made the fights more satisfying, Sendak once told him: what the audience really wanted was gladiators ripping each other apart, up close and personal.

Shiro gave them what they wanted. He grew tough, tougher; his body rippled with the scars of close calls. He pared himself down to muscle and instinct. He thought of his first opponents: Myzax, Cafa, Throgg. At the time he had thought them monstrous: now he knew that he was not so different. In the arena, everyone did what they must to survive.

Sendak did not explicitly offer him a deal: in fact he said very little to Shiro at all. But having made him monstrous in thought and deed and shape, Sendak made it clear what he was offering. Not protection: Shiro fought in the arena and lived by his own mettle. What Sendak offered was praise. Comfort.

In a close grapple, still not able to judge his own strength, he nearly tore his opponent's head right off. He was taken to Sendak's chambers, still covered in sticky blood and cold-prickly with adrenaline, to be stripped and washed by the Commander himself. After months of this treatment, he still couldn't bear to examine the deep satisfaction that Sendak's warm touch brought, after no-one had willingly touched him since Matt had been taken. He told himself it was only the pleasure of being clean again.

Sendak washed him slowly - slower than usual, more thoroughly. The rough, warm cloth and the firm strokes felt so good that he had to close his eyes. He felt like a cat being lovingly petted. He pretended he couldn't sense Sendak's physical presence beside him.

The strokes went up his inner thighs. Shiro didn't tense. Resistance would result in sentries being called to hold him down. He could probably do with a wash there as much as anywhere else.

When the rough cloth wrapped around his dick, he went very still. He had forgotten that he had an erection; he had not realised that this might be an object of interest to Sendak. It seemed, suddenly, as if all that careful handling had been leading up to this.

He felt a shiver run through him. It was not unusual for men to get erections while fighting - he had seen it happen to other soldiers in the Garrison, and even to a few male alien opponents in the arena - and up until now he had not felt that there was anything to be embarrassed about. But Sendak's interest made it suddenly feel - inappropriate, dirty.

He did nothing. It felt so _good_. 

"Here," murmured Sendak, cupping the back of Shiro's head with his free hand and pulling it gently towards him. He continued to gently stroke Shiro's erection with the cloth, no longer merely cleaning.

Shiro put his head into the crook of Sendak's neck, and did not bite.


End file.
